To be perfectly honest, I was never really aware that I had any special abilities. When you have what you have, you don't really think about what you don't have; you simply work with what you have.

My father ran the gamut: a favorite of his was Josef Hofmann, but there was also Friedman, Rachmaninoff, Godowsky, Lhevinne, Moiseiwitsch, Paderewski, etc.

Very rarely do I work on mechanics now. I tend to solve problems within the music itself.

As far as the style, I can't say there is one definite style. I probably feel most comfortable writing in a tonal idiom, with considerable, if not extreme chromaticism.

I don't listen to recordings very much now, to be perfectly honest. I listened to them a lot when I was younger.

Every composer understands and uses the system of notation differently, and that's what makes you appreciate the trouble they go through in doing so.

Wearing that? Wouldn't you fancy a shapeless cardigan instead? You rock a shapeless cardigan, honey.

You know, my first three or four drafts, you can see, are on legal pads in long hand. And then I go to a typewriter, and I know everybody's switching to a computer. And I'm sort of laughed at.

During inhalation, the breath should move exactly like clouds spreading in the sky.

The fruits of philosophy are the important thing, not the philosophy itself. When we ask the time, we don't want to know how watches are made.

Love is madness, and lust is poison.

I try to go to the gym three to four times a week and mix it up with yoga or a personal trainer.

A close inspection discovers an empirical impossibility to be inherent in the idea of evolution.

We all die, just a question of when.

I take that as an insult, even at 36.

I'm probably the only bestselling author you know who's written more books than she's read.